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The International Commercial Law Blog aims to foster discussion about the rapidly evolving international commercial law, focusing on the new challenges and opportunities presented by European Union action, it also examines practical aspects of cross border transactions and day-to-day operations of business and industries in the global context. More

A new edition of the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (the “Nice Classification”) will enter into force on 1 January 2012. It will be available on the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) web site, at the following address: www.wipo.int/classifications/en/.

The International Bureau of WIPO will apply the tenth edition of the Nice Classification to all international applications that are received by the Office of origin on or after 1 January 2012.

In conformity with its previous practice, the International Bureau of WIPO will not reclassify, in accordance with the tenth edition of the Nice Classification, the list of goods and services of an international registration that is the subject, after 31 December 2011, of a renewal, subsequent designation or any other change affecting the list of goods and services.

The Nice Classification was established by an Agreement concluded at the Nice Diplomatic Conference, on 15 June 1957, was revised at Stockholm, in 1967, and at Geneva, in 1977, and was amended in 1979.

The countries party to the Nice Agreement constitute a Special Union within the framework of the Paris Union for the Protection of Industrial Property. They have adopted and apply the Nice Classification for the purposes of the registration of marks.

Each of the countries party to the Nice Agreement is obliged to apply the Nice Classification in connection with the registration of marks, either as the principal classification or as a subsidiary classification, and has to include in the official documents and publications relating to its registrations of marks the numbers of the classes of the Classification to which the goods or services for which the marks are registered belong.

Use of the Nice Classification is mandatory not only for the national registration of marks in countries party to the Nice Agreement, but also for the international registration of marks effected by the International Bureau of WIPO, under the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks and under the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks, and for the registration of marks by the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI), by the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), by the Benelux Organisation for Intellectual Property (BOIP) and by the European Union Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM).

The Nice Classification is also applied in a number of countries not party to the Nice Agreement.

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